1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a system and method for deploying airbags in a vehicle.
2. Background Art
In today's Advanced Restraint System (ARS), a number of restraint controls rely on passive sensing, the sensing system for injury avoidance and/or injury severity reduction, to deploy airbags. In addition, restraint controls may need to process active sensing, the sensing system for accident avoidance and/or crash severity reduction, to enhance ARS performance. Plausibility is used to ensure that the vehicle has actually encountered a rollover event or a side impact collision prior to deploying the airbags.
The additional step of processing additional signals for plausibility purposes may delay the deployment of airbags during rollover and side impact collisions. Such a delay may increase the potential for occupants in a vehicle to make contact with the vehicle (e.g., driver's head may contact driver's side window) prior to the airbags being deployed. Active sensing systems may provide information related to a pending rollover event or side impact collision.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to combine passive and active sensing systems to ensure that airbags and other injury prevention devices are deployed at a point in time sufficient to mitigate plausibility time delays in order to prevent contact between the vehicle and occupants of the vehicle.